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The tingle of spearmint toothpaste added a chill to Momo’s yawns. She dragged her slippered feet out of the bathroom, rubbing the heel of her palm against her drooping eyes. She still couldn’t reach the light on her own, so she waited for her dad to come around the corner. Sure enough, he switched it off once he saw her and she mumbled a thanks.
Noticing how Momo swayed on her feet, he hefted her up and onto his shoulders. The gentle rock of his gait down the hall nearly put her to sleep before they could make it to her room.
Just as her eyes were about to slip closed, a sudden sting of pain made them fly open. Momo looked down to see a red handprint on her forearm. She reached for it, noticing how her hand was dwarfed by the larger print. Once she made contact, she winced.
“Hm? Something wrong?” Her dad flipped on the lamp in her room.
“Someone hit me. But…there’s no one.” She stretched her arm out so he could see. Turning the mark under the light, it looked as though someone had grabbed her. The sting faded, but didn’t go away completely.
Her father’s eyes sparked with recognition, then filled with warmth. “Oh, honey. That’s your soulmate.”
Momo blinked. “My what?”
“Your soulmate. The person who’ll love you like your mom and I love each other.” He sat on the side of her bed and let her climb down from his shoulders.
Her face scrunched up, displeased with the answer. “So why did they hurt me?”
“I’m sure they didn’t mean to.” He chuckled, leaned in, and dropped his voice to a whisper. “You know how your mom runs into stuff when she’s not looking?”
Momo nodded.
“Well, when she gets hurt, I feel it too. If it feels really bad, that’s how I know she needs help, and I come running.” He pulled back the pastel blue covers for her. “Whoever your soulmate is, I’m sure they wouldn’t hurt you on purpose. Might just be playing a little rough right now.”
“You think so?”
“I know so. Hopefully, they don’t stub their toe as much as I do.”
Momo giggled as he tucked her in.
“Get some sleep, kiddo. You’ve got school tomorrow.”
“Okay. Night, dad.”
The bed rose into its original shape as he got up to close the door. Momo reached over to the lamp, but paused to take one more look at the handprint. It didn’t hurt anymore, the mark having all but faded.
Letting the darkness pull her into slumber, her thoughts drifted in all kinds of directions, wondering what kind of person her soulmate would be and who they were playing with.
Mai's arms shook under the weight of the tea tray. It was the tenth delivery in as many minutes, and the soreness was getting to her. There was no sliding door to open this time, but a few stairwells to ascend. Mai held her breath as she went up, all of her focus on keeping the teapot still.
Naoya stood flush to the second floor’s balcony, overlooking the Hei. Beneath him, they completed drill after drill after drill. Each form and strike was imbued with cursed energy; the overwhelming thrum of power filling the room made Mai’s hair stand on end.
Approaching the wooden table, Mai placed the tea set down as quickly and quietly as possible. She allowed a moment for the ache in her arms to subside before picking up the simmering teapot. She poured it smoothly, careful not to spill a drop or overfill the yunomi. With that done, Mai put her back to the wall and waited for a dismissal or another order.
She hoped for a dismissal.
Naoya didn’t acknowledge her, only the cup she’d set for him. As he took a drink—Adam's apple bobbing with each sip—Mai watched him.
She kept her gaze a few degrees short of a glare, and wondered. What if he choked? What if, instead of the imported tea leaves, she'd taken the drain cleaner from under the sink and brewed that instead? What then? Would he fall to the floor with both hands clasped around his neck, or slump forward over the balcony?
How long would it take for someone to figure out what had happened? How far could she get?
“What's this?” The crack of Naoya's palm against Mai's face knocked her against the wall, then onto her back. “Don't think you can stare at me.”
The apology fell from her mouth, limp as a dead offering. But as she went to stand up, a pained gasp wrenched its way out of her and she dropped back onto the ground. Blood seeped through her hakama where it met her knees.
Panic rose in her chest as her hands flew up to stop the bleeding. Combined with the knocks to her head, the situation was more than disorienting.
Naoya scoffed. “Even someone as worthless as you gets a soulmate.”
Her mind latched onto this news, desperate for anything that would explain what had happened to her. “A what?"
“A guy you'll never meet did that to you.” He snickered into his cup. “If you had any useful amount of cursed energy, you could use that pain to your advantage.”
When the trickle of blood came to a stop at her ankle, she removed her hands from her knees. Mai’s breathing grew heavy with anger. She ground her teeth, and willed her voice down from the scream she wanted to let out. “Am I excused?”
Naoya waved her away.
Descending one flight of stairs, Mai came to a stop in the corner before the second set. With no one around, she dug her fingernails into bloody palms.
Along with her family name, Mai now had another curse she didn’t ask for.
All things considered, Momo had gotten pretty good at hiding it. She’d come to expect the unexpected when it came to this soulmate business. She learned to keep an iron grip on anything she held, just in case a sudden blow knocked the wind out of her. She cleared her throat after grunts, feigning congestion. She memorized a handful of excuses to get out of gym class.
But the worst of it came at night.
It would start with something small—maybe a bump against the shoulder. Before long, strikes rushed in from all directions.
Whatever this was, it wasn’t some children’s game. It felt like target practice.
With the bedroom door locked, Momo surrounded herself with cursed energy. It flowed throughout her body and dulled the pain. If agony was shared through this bond, maybe comfort could be as well?
It might be foolish to hope so, but Momo wasn't willing to face the alternative.
Thousands of miles away, Mai breathed a sigh of relief onto the dusty ground.
Mai had never been this far from home.
For the first time, she had a room to herself. A place where no one would bother her, where she could ignore anyone who tried. She tensed up whenever she heard people pass by in the halls, held her breath when they called her name. If she stayed inside long enough, maybe they'd forget she was even here.
On the otherwise blank wall, there was a calendar marked with school events and holidays. She flipped through the months—completely ignoring the photos of landscapes—to count the number of days in the school year. Her brow furrowed; it only deepened when she recounted just to make sure: 210 days.
Something between a hiss and a wince pushed out from behind her teeth. So far, the plan was to keep hiding, shrink further, and treat hunger with sleep. It wasn’t a good plan, but she didn’t believe she’d get much farther on the run.
The sun dipped and rose, each rotation marked with an X. Coming up on a week, the check-ins from strangers began to taper off.
But there was one girl who kept knocking. She hadn’t missed a day yet.
It started with three taps to the door, light enough that Mai could pretend she hadn’t heard them. A minute later, three more.
Mai sat up on her bed and did her best to glare through the door. She cleared her throat, voice weak from lack of use. “What do you want?”
“So you are in there.”
“Go away,” Mai said through gritted teeth.
A huff. “You haven’t eaten yet, right? I brought you something.”
At the mere mention of food, Mai's stomach betrayed her with a loud grumble. “Just leave it outside.”
“And let the ants get it? I don’t think so.”
Just what would it take to get this girl to leave?
“Are you really not gonna open the door?”
“No-” A more insistent grumble cut Mai off. “Okay.”
Mai tossed the covers off her legs and stalked toward the door. She slid it open with more force than necessary, hoping it would be somewhat intimidating. Instead of meeting a scared look, her eyes slid over two upright pigtails. Tilting her head down a few centimeters, she saw a girl in a long black dress with one hand on her hip and the other holding a cling-wrapped bowl of mushroom udon.
Even though the broth’s scent was stifled by the plastic, it was more than enough to get Mai’s mouth to water.
The girl handed the bowl to Mai. “Eat it before it gets cold, alright?”
“Yeah…” Her mind drifted off, wondering how it’d taste, before Mai shook her head and mumbled a proper sentence. “Yes. I will. Thanks.”
“Good.” The girl turned on her heel and walked into the room across from Mai’s.
Mai stared after her for a few seconds, but the urge to eat finally overcame her and she sat at her desk. The meal was savory, filling—better than what she’d been given at home, but not better than anything she’d prepared for others. After a while, it replenished some of the energy that had been lost since she first arrived.
Forty feet away, the unbearable emptiness in the pit of Momo’s stomach waned out of existence.
This was not how Momo envisioned her time in Kyoto going.
She always knew sorcerers were a strange bunch. That much had been apparent during orientation. But after getting her closest neighbor to finally accept a meal, Utahime entrusted Momo with keeping that up.
Just as well. Momo was curious about her anyway. Maybe she had a restriction like Mechamaru.
Each day, she brought dinner to Mai's door as well as a stack of homework from Utahime. Only the food was accepted.
This time, Momo had a warm bowl of chazuke topped with salmon flakes resting on a curse theory textbook. Carefully, she tried to maneuver all of this onto one hand so she could knock, but eventually gave up and lightly kicked the door.
As it opened, Kamo stopped at the other end of the hallway. “Ah, Nishimiya. Have you seen Todo?”
Mai yanked the door shut, its impact a few ticks below a slam.
Momo blinked once, twice, then turned to Kamo. “It's Thursday, right? Check the rec room, Takada's about to be on.”
He nodded, continuing down the hall.
Momo cleared her throat. “Um. You can come out now.”
The door pulled against its tracks. Hazel eyes were cast low. From Momo's point of view, they were hidden by thick lashes. She took a step forward and tried to meet that gaze anyway.
Mai backed up. “Sorry. Didn't mean to slam the door in your face.”
“It's fine. But why are you hiding from Kamo?”
“I'm not hiding,” Mai muttered, “I just don't want him to see me.”
Momo didn't imagine there was much of a difference, but whatever the distinction was must've been important to Mai.
“Okay. Why not?”
“I'm not in the mood to take orders.” Mai shrugged.
“He can't give you any?” It was meant to be a statement, but Momo’s confusion tilted it up into a question. “He's just another student, same as us.”
Mai smirked, humorless, as she cradled the bowl in her hands. “One of these days, remind me to tell you why you're wrong.”
The grim tone made it sound more like a threat than an offer. Then again, Momo had never been one to turn down exclusive info. “Deal.”
Momo glanced down at the textbook still in her hands. “At least take the homework this time!”
“No thanks.” Mai chuckled, closing the door once more.
Mai put her ear to the wall. It had been hours since she'd heard a voice, but she listened more intently whenever any sound made it from outside.
Once she was certain the halls were empty, she headed back to the nightstand, loading a pile of dishes into her arms and under her chin.
It was past time for her to do this, but just thinking of the chore was enough to exhaust her. Since she wasn't getting much sleep lately anyway, she might as well get it over with when she was least likely to be found.
Gingerly, Mai worked the door open with the side of her elbow and tiptoed her way to the kitchen. She pressed the light switch with her shoulder, and nearly dropped a month's worth of dirty dishes.
Momo let out a squeak as she locked eyes with Mai behind the refrigerator door, arms full of sandwich ingredients.
“Hey, ” Momo said with noticeable strain in her voice.
“Hi,” Mai whispered back.
They shuffled around each other, keeping their eyes on opposite ends of the room.
Oh, how Mai wished the ground would open up beneath her feet, swallow her entirely, and leave no trace of her behind.
If she’d waited until 3 AM instead of 2 AM, maybe she’d have spared herself this embarrassment. At least the sound of water filling the sink gave her something to pretend to focus on.
Out of the corner of her eye, Mai snuck a glance at Momo. She’d set everything down at a table and arranged it neatly. As she reached for two slices of bread, her eyes flicked up to Mai’s.
Mai turned back to the sink and lathered a bowl with soapy water. “What?”
“Nothing. It’s just-. It’s nice to see you out of your room.”
“Eh, don’t get used to it.”
“I’ll try. And if anyone asks, I didn’t see you.”
It was a small reassurance, but it sapped the tension from between Mai’s shoulders all the same. “Same to you.”
She wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to strike up a conversation, but neither of them were rushing to be anywhere else. “So. Anything interesting happen today?”
Momo groaned, and Mai could practically hear her eyes roll. “Interesting? No. Just annoying. I told you about Todo, right?”
“Big guy. Obsessed with some singer.”
Momo snickered. “Yeah. Well, he tried to corner me again.” She dropped her voice as low as it could go, which wasn’t very far. “‘What kind of soulmate do you want?’”
A chill wound its way up Mai’s spine, reminiscent of the dread that accompanied her curse.
“A kind, rich one would be nice,” Momo continued. “Miwa was onto something with that one, but Todo called her boring.”
Mai scoffed. What kindness was there to be found in a soulmate? “Miwa?”
“Blue hair.”
“Right. The gullible one.” That explained it. Mai rinsed off the dishes and let the utensils soak. “So what’d you say?”
“Oh, I didn’t answer. We were outside, so I just flew away. I’m not gonna accept judgment from him of all people.” The disdain dripping from Momo’s voice told Mai everything she needed to know about their relationship.
“Why would he judge you?”
The pause stretched on for so long, Mai wondered if she’d been ignored. It wouldn’t be the first time. But a quick look told her Momo took the question very seriously, measuring her words as she took a bite out of her snack.
Momo's shoulders slumped. “I want them to be someone I could protect. That doesn’t seem like the kind of answer he’d respect.”
Mai’s brows furrowed—partly in confusion, partly in contempt. “You'd protect a curse?”
Concern poured into Momo’s expression. “A curse? How could you say that?”
Mai sighed more deeply than she expected to. The edge of it uprooted a few long-buried frustrations. “Look. I don’t have a lot of cursed energy. Getting random spikes of pain may help regular sorcerers, but it’s less than useless for me. If I’m gonna live as a sorcerer, it’d be for the best if I died before him.”
The way Momo’s face crumbled in horror and disbelief made Mai’s chest ache. “Do you really think that?”
“I mean, who would miss me. You?”
“Yes!”
“Why?” caught in the back of Mai’s throat, pushed down by a pained jolt that ran up her index finger. Under the sudsy water, she’d grazed the wrong end of a knife. From across the room, Momo let out a gasp.
“See what I mea-” Mai looked over, and her heart stopped.
Momo cradled her index finger in her hand, inspecting the pad carefully. The same hand Mai held underwater.
No. That wasn’t right. That could not be right.
Mai pressed her thumb against the sore spot. In response, a pearl of blood rose from Momo’s finger. Momo’s tongue swiped over it, and she let out a worried hum.
The weight of all this made Mai’s knees buckle. She gripped the countertop in an attempt to regain her balance.
“Mai? You alright?”
Mai shook her head. If this was a dream, the best time to wake up was yesterday.
“What’s wrong?”
Mai lifted her hand, revealing a thin trickle of blood. “Looks like I’m your curse, Momo.”
It was so twisted, she could laugh.
The scrape of the chair cut through the room, and before she knew it, Momo leapt into her arms. Mai wasn’t strong enough to withstand the force of it. They crashed onto the ground with Momo’s face buried in her chest. The itchy wetness of tears soaked the front of Mai’s sleep shirt.
“I know,” Mai soothed. “How awful, right?”
Momo lifted her head. Even with tears tracking down her cheeks, her eyes bore into Mai with a determined look. “That’s not it. I thought-. I was afraid I’d never meet you.”
Mai struggled to speak over the lump in her throat. “Why would you want to do that?”
“Because you needed help.”
Mai could’ve sworn she’d cried all her tears, but here Momo was to prove her wrong. The pang in her chest deepened, anchoring her underneath this girl. She couldn’t move, couldn’t fight, couldn’t pull away.
And she didn’t want to.
Momo gently pressed her forehead to Mai’s. “You’re not a curse. You’re my soulmate.” The widest grin in the world stretched across Momo’s face. “Do you know what that means?”
“What?”
“It means we’re gonna be there for each other as best as we can, for as long as we can. So what do you say?”
It would be so easy to call Momo a liar—the accusation was already on the tip of Mai’s tongue. But Momo had never misled her before, and the sincerity rolling off of her was overwhelming.
Whatever this was, it was genuine.
Mai chuckled, allowing herself to pull Momo further into her arms.
“I’d say you make that sound pretty nice.”